FILTER Magazine #56

By Alejandro Rubio on January 23, 2013

After traveling the country and corrupting countless young virgins in their “California Church Teen Choir” tour bus, those surfing marijuanos from Orange County are finally back with another gothic beach party for their friends. The Growlers’ third full-length album sounds like a sketchy Tijuana pharmacy that’s got a little “something” for everybody. Salty honky-tonks like “Pet Shop Eyes” and “Derka Blues” appear alongside guitarist Matt Taylor’s psychedelic boleros like “It’s No Use,” which sounds like Los Panchos caught in a riptide. Then there’s “One Million Lovers,” which features cantina balladeer Brooks Nielsen crooning above the oscillating carnival organ and elastic baritone guitar—a perfect song para los lovers. And yet, there’s “In Between,” wherein Nielsen’s claim, “We don’t want to live like kooks/Just want to live ‘in between’/Not square/Not hippie/Not like you/Good American kids with dreams,” comes across like a sobering moment of clarity in the midst of all this psychotropic weirdness. But try to be cool when Hung at Heart starts to kick in, and if US Customs happens to ask if you have something to declare, be sure to shout back, “¡Viva Los Growlers!”